A minor health insurance player in Kentucky just received quiet approval from state insurance bureaucrats to further gouge consumers just as Gov. Beshear triggered a state law designed to prohibit price gouging for other consumer goods. The timing of this price increase suggests other health insurers may soon follow suit.
Time Insurance Company health coverage premiums will increase nine percent in Kentucky on May 1. This comes after Time's fifteen percent increase took effect January 1. And this comes immediately on the heels of Kentucky's largest ObamaCare health insurer receiving multiple rate increases in quick succession.
Late last year, just as the Kentucky Health Cooperative was making headlines for sucking down tens of millions more in federal bailout funds and sacking consumer advocates, it requested a 9.9% rate increase in June and got a fifteen percent increase in September. They came back in October and increased that to twenty percent with a quick assist from the Kentucky Department of Insurance.
We'll be on the lookout for more rate increases in the weeks ahead.
